Abstract
This study explored refugee resettlement volunteering as a practice of care and everyday peacebuilding in the context of Ōtepoti Dunedin, Aotearoa New Zealand. Refugee resettlement is a managed solution to displacement derived from global refugee regimes which arguably reflect a tension between care for, and control of, people displaced by violent conflict. This tension can be seen as reflected in helper-recipient relationships in resettlement contexts, as well-intentioned volunteers support former refugees who have little control over where and how they are resettled. As refugee numbers have increased globally, there has been growing academic scrutiny over how civil society supports refugees. Much research has highlighted how dominant power hierarchies can be both reinforced and resisted by refugees and volunteers, including in resettlement contexts.
While volunteers are recognised to have an integral role in resettlement support in Aotearoa, no published research has explored their experiences supporting resettlement since the introduction of the 2012 Refugee Resettlement Strategy. Furthermore, it appears that no studies internationally have applied a feminist peace perspective using care and everyday peacebuilding to analyse volunteer perspectives. A feminist peace perspective recognises the political significance of everyday, mundane caring actions within broader structural inequalities and inequities, including in contexts broadly seen as peaceful.
My research aims were to understand how volunteers contribute to refugee resettlement, how they might reshape and reinforce unequal power dynamics amid local and global refugee regimes in a settler colonial context, and the meanings they associate with their volunteering. My use of care and everyday peacebuilding as lenses for analysing volunteers’ motivations, roles, contributions, and experiences recognises the everyday politics of care, and the messy, contradictory dynamics of volunteers’ support practices during resettlement. Care and everyday peacebuilding provide a basis for understanding how peace and violence can be intertwined, rather than dichotomous.
I employed a qualitative case study approach and conducted data collection in Ōtepoti and online from 2020 to 2021. The study involved semi-structured interviews and peer group conversations with three participant groups: 22 volunteers, six resettlement support staff, and four stakeholders engaged in strategic oversight of resettlement processes. Study findings centered on how volunteers made sense of their evolving motivations, roles, and contributions, iiwhile highlighting contradictions and challenges inherent in supporting resettlement, particularly where state-funded support was inadequate to meet the needs of former refugees. While the study was based in Ōtepoti, its findings may resonate with other, similar contexts.
My thesis outlines three broad conclusions. Firstly, the roles, motivations, and contributions of volunteers are shaped and reshaped by their relationships with former refugees and the broader community. Secondly, refugee resettlement is a process of inevitable contestation and tension due to intersecting unequal power dynamics, which volunteers experience and negotiate in different ways. Lastly, there is no pure position in peacebuilding. However, care and everyday peacebuilding provide helpful lenses for analysing volunteers’ sense-making in relation to resettlement support, and foregrounding the ambiguity, tension, and messiness involved in support practices. As enactors of care and everyday peacebuilding, resettlement volunteers can resist and reinforce dominant power dynamics.
While the study was limited in size and scope, it nevertheless provides a basis for ‘petite generalisations’ (Stake, 1995) about volunteer contributions to resettlement. Recommendations based on the study include: ensure that policy adequately recognises the role of volunteers in fostering resettlement; prioritise community adaptation to ensure improved refugee resettlement outcomes; ensure adequate funding for resettlement support agencies, including support for volunteers; sustain complementary pathways to resettlement that centre community involvement; and prioritise Indigenous decision-making in immigration and refugee resettlement policy.